


the air that inhabits

by alchemystique



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 21:35:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1279687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemystique/pseuds/alchemystique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The three phases of sleeping arrangements.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the air that inhabits

**Author's Note:**

> Hahahaha I did it again - ‘just a little drabble about Hook staying at the loft’ I told myself ‘something cute and short and fun’, I said as I opened by notebook, ‘just a little cute thing’ I reminded myself. And then my muse went SCREW YOU and this came out instead.
> 
> Thank you for all your support - these little fics have gotten me through the hardest part of this damn hiatus and I really do appreciate every single bit of feedback I get about them.

**the air that inhabits**

  
_“I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.” - Margaret Atwood_

"Hey, uh, why is Hook passed out on our couch right now?"

Mary Margaret had burst into her room not thirty seconds ago, eyes a little wild, staring at Emma like she’d grown a second head, and Emma has had a long day, okay, she’s really not in the mood. She shushes her, glancing across at the open balcony, nervously hoping the query hasn’t woken him. It’s been a _really_ long day.

"If you hadn’t noticed, the B and B got kind of demolished by that storm earlier, and it’s not like he has a ship anymore. He sacrificed it. To find me." 

She keeps reminding everyone that Hook literally gave up his home to bring her back to hers, and it’s getting a little bit tiresome. Mary Margaret looks a little guilty, but all Emma can think is _good_. They don’t have any memories of the year in the Enchanted Forest, but Hook does, and he speaks on the small amount of time he was with them with the kind of gentle fondness she knows means they’d made peace with him, perhaps even befriended him, and considering just how much he’s done for them she really doesn’t feel like she should have to defend him.   
[[MORE]]  
“Seriously, I am not having this conversation right now. If you don’t want him here fine, but you can tell him yourself. I’m sure it’d be a great way to thank him for saving your grandsons life today.” Tossing her shirt angrily across the room in the general direction of her hamper, Emma shoots her mother a dark look. “I know you don’t like him. And I get it. I really do. But Hook is a part of my life and he’s not going anywhere any time soon. So.”

"Oh, Emma, it’s not that I don’t like him."

"Really? ‘Cause you seem to not like him." She’s being obnoxious, she knows, pent up anger and exhaustion and just an immense unwillingness to deal with bullshit today.

"It’s just…he’s…"

"He’s risked everything to keep me and my family safe. He’s the one who brought me back to you guys, something you seem to have conveniently forgotten. _He came back._ It can’t honestly surprise you to know that that’s a pretty rare thing in my life.”

"Oh Emma…"

"I’m just really damn tired of everyone in this town deciding what’s right for me. Guess what? I’ve done a hell of a lot for these people, and I think maybe I can make my own decisions about who I want to care about. He’s made a hell of a lot of bad decisions. I used to _live_ off bad decisions, but you gave me a chance. You trusted me when you had no reason to. Now I’m just asking you to _trust me_. He’s one of the good guys.”

Emma watches her, a mothers eyes taking her in as Emma stares her down, willing her to say anything else, but Mary Margaret merely nods her head swiftly and disappears down the stairs quietly, her footsteps echoing across the silent loft as she goes.

——

"Good morning," he says, staring at her as she swings groggily around the staircase, his smile bright and curious and yep, he totally heard everything last night.

His bed head is a little more pronounced than usual, but other than that he looks the same as usual, which is mildly annoying this early in the morning.

He slides a cup of coffee across the countertop, and she wonders for a moment how he figured the machine out before she remembers that David always sets it the night before. Cream and sugar is already stirred in, steam still wafting up from the mug (he must have heard her stumbling around upstairs) and she finds him a whole lot less annoying when she takes the first sip. It’s perfect. 

(She can remember him watching her at Granny’s, three packets of sugar and just a dash of cream, eyes taking in her movement, Jesus Christ he’d _remembered how she took her coffee._

"Morning."

"I hope you slept well."

Emma eyes him as she slides into the stool next to him, waiting for him to bring it up, but he doesn’t, humming quietly to himself as he sips his own drink, eyes darting across news stories in the paper as if his life depends on knowing every detail of the recent flash flooding in California.

It’s quiet, calm, peaceful, and terrifyingly domestic, and she is _shockingly_ okay with him knowing how fiercely she’d defended him last night.

"It was fine. How was the couch?"

"Unforgiving."

"You know, I told you -."

"Swan, when I share a bed with you for the first time it will not be because some wench has destroyed the only inn in town and you were feeling hospitable."

“ _When_?”

His grin is absolutely wicked and totally uncalled for.

"I’m feeling quite hopeful this morning."

"Hmm." And okay, maybe it’s not really that presumptuous, considering everything they’ve been dancing around since New York (since Neverland, since the beanstalk, since she’d tied him up and drug the truth out of him so long ago now).

Feeling a little daring, she nudges into him, shoulders pressed together as she leans across to grab the comics section from the paper, and he looks at her, smiling and content and, yeah, it’s not really that presumptuous at all.

David crashes his way into the kitchen sometime later (like father like daughter, she thinks as he bumps into the side of the island), groggy and blurry-eyed, nodding at Hook as he pours himself a cup of coffee, rubbing at his eyes.

It takes about a minute for him to fully grasp what he’s walked in on, and he does a double take at them, sipping coffee as they quietly read over the newspaper, and Emma can see out of the corner of her eye the cogs turning in his head as he puts the pieces together.

"Did you…stay the night?"

Emma doesn’t bother to look up.

"The storm caused a bit of damage to the inn. Your daughter was kind enough to offer me the use of your…couch."

The tension ebbs from David’s shoulders, and he leans heavily against the counter. “That bitch messed with Grannys!?”

——

"Go to bed, Swan."

The thing is, she knows she _should_. Tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow is the end of it, and that stupid witch is going to die.

(What if something goes wrong? _It won’t._ Yeah, but what if -. _You will defeat her, Emma, I know it._ What if you’re wrong? _When have I ever been wrong about you?_ )

But.

But there are so many factors, so much on the line this time, it’s not just Henry (he’s enough, he is always enough, but there is more), its her family, it’s the brother or sister that hasn’t even made it’s way into the world yet, it’s this town, and her friends, and…and it’s Hook.

The thought of losing him sits heavy in her mind, almost as unbearable as losing Henry, and she _can’t_ , she can’t sleep knowing that no matter what she does he will find a way to fight this battle at her side.

"I can’t," she tells him in a whisper, and he knows, he _knows_. (She’s an open book.)

"Very well," is all he says, and he levers his legs up over the side of the couch, his feet landing in her lap as he slides himself down, laying out across the length of his makeshift bed.

Emma huffs in annoyance, and he opens one eye to look at her. “The both of us need rest, Swan,” he tells her, and she feels something like panic rising in her, a crushing ache in her chest.

The hand he holds out to her is a lifeline, and she doesn’t allow herself any time to second guess it, letting him pull her forward and into him as she climbs over his body. His eyes are closed, and his breath slightly uneven, his leg quivering under her as she curls into his side carefully, unsurprised to find how easily she _fits_ , tucked up against the cushions, her legs tangling in his.

"I thought you said you weren’t sharing a bed with me."

He stares down at her through heavy lidded eyes. “This is hardly a bed, love.”

When he drags the thin blanket across them both, his fingers find her shoulder and just linger there, dancing softly up and down her arm in a soft caress - she lets out a deep breath, air blowing across his neck, and his pulse jumps beneath his jaw. This is a _bad_ idea - ever since Neal, other than Walsh (the pinnacle of bad ideas) she can’t remember ever sleeping next to a man she has every intention of speaking to in the morning, but it’s _Hook_ , and as she slides her hand across his chest she can already feel the tension ebbing away. _Just this once_ , she tells herself as she closes her eyes. Just this once, she’ll let herself just be.

——

She leaves the diner early, hugging Henry close to her before she goes, and when Hook falls into step beside her she isn’t even a little surprised. There are a million things she wants to say to him, a million things she want to _do_ to him, and yelling at him for being so stupid and careless with his own life is somewhere near the top of the list, but she is _so tired_ , her body aches and her mind is foggy and when she unlocks the door to the loft and steps through she turns on her heel to look at him.

The cut across his lip is fresh, the slice across his forehead is just barely closed up, but those are flesh wounds, they’ll heal, and he _died_ today, he _stopped breathing_ , and she _loves_ him, she loves his stupid face and his big heart and his ridiculous innuendo and his overwhelming _belief_ in her and he was _dead_.

"Emma…"

"Shut up."

All she wants is to sleep for the next ten years, but he _died_ and she _saved_ him and Jesus fucking Christ she just can’t.

“ _Swan_ ,” he says, like he means to apologize for sacrificing his life for her son, for her parents, for _her_ , and just - no.

“ _Shut up_ ,” she hisses at him, hands pressing against his chest, shoving him back into the door, anger and fear pumping through her veins, the memory of him just _collapsing_ before the witch flashing through her mind, and her lips meet his furiously, teeth gnashing and heads bumping and she curls her hand violently into his neck as she takes her fill of him, her heart hammering against her rib cage, his small, whimpering noise as his head smacks into the wall (she can taste blood, knows she’s broken open his split lip, doesn’t care a bit), her soft sigh as he drags her into him, the hook pressing hard into the small of her back as he digs a needy hand into her hair, it’s _too much_ and not enough and she is _so_ fucking tired.

She pulls back first, a quivering breath escaping her as his whole body sways toward her, foreheads pressed so close she knows they’ll have matching red marks.

"You’re an idiot," she tells him, and he doesn’t dare refute her, eyes holding hers, full of longing and desire and love, god he loves her, she knows it, he loves her and he loves her family and he is the the ~~worst~~ _best_ thing that has ever happened to her.

"I think it’s time to renegotiate the terms of your sleeping arrangements."

They are both absolutely wrecked from the kiss, still breathing heavily, grasping at each other like the world might end if they let go, and i _t might_ , she thinks, it very well might.

"As you wish," he says, and doesn’t protest as she drags him up the stairs.

He doesn’t say a word as she strips (a first for him, and probably a last), just tosses his coat and vest across a chair, toeing off his boots as he watches her change into an overlarge tee shirt, eyes lingering on her bare legs as she slips into bed. 

He follows without question, and she doesn’t bother to hide the way her hands shake as she slides across to him, throwing a leg over him and nestling her head in close, a trembling arm falling across him, her fingers drifting over the steady beat of his heart.

"I’d do it again, you know. In a heartbeat."

She knows, _she knows_ , and asking him not to would be like asking him not to breathe. It’s who he is, and god help her she loves him all the same.

"If that’s too much for you, tell me now." He’s terrified, she can feel it, the very air around them is heavy with it, but somewhere between watching him fall and breathing life back into him she lost the will to fight any of this.

"It’s too much. Its - You’re too much." He nods, his chin digging into the top of her head. "I don’t know how to do this."

If it were anyone else they might mistake her meaning, but he knows her better than she knows herself, and his embrace tightens, the hook digging into her and his fingers pressing her more tightly against him.

"Go to sleep," he says softly, the words a whisper against her hair, and when she threads her fingers into his this whole, awful ordeal disappears from her mind for a moment.

"I love you," she whispers into the side of his neck, and his whole body stills, muscles coiled tightly for the barest hint of a moment before he sinks into the bed, into _her_ , and the press of lips on the top of her head makes her eyes drift closed.

"I know," he says, and they both fall into slumber.


End file.
